The two Republican office holders have been at each other for years. Spitzer once was considered Rackauckas’ heir apparent until the two had a falling out in 2010 and Rackauckas fired Spitzer from his position in the DA’s office.

According to the Times, Rackauckas, working with the state Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), is looking into Spitzer’s campaign fundraising and spending as well as allegations from a former legal client that she couldn’t pay her legal bills so Spitzer put her on his campaign and county payrolls and she used $7,000 of that money to repay him in cash.

Neither Rackauckas nor Spitzer agreed to be interviewed by the Times, but the newspaper said it got confirmation of the investigation from three individuals who were interviewed by investigators, including the former legal client turned staffer, Christine Richters.

The DA’s investigation of his political rival raises serious ethical issues, Bruce Green, director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham University, told the Times.

“The opposing candidate, if he ever were indicted, would have a pretty good argument that the prosecutor’s office has an impermissible conflict of interest,” Green said. “The prosecutor should be concerned and the public should be concerned.”

You can contact Tracy Wood at twood@voiceofoc.org and follow her on Twitter: @TracyVOC

FILED UNDER:

RELATED STORIES

Orange County’s Sheriff Sandra Hutchens’ credibility has been destroyed by Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals. Meanwhile, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas stands accused of political corruption by his own senior investigators. Regional fire service also is in full crisis mode after executives at the Orange County Fire Authority apparently ousted Fire Chief Jeff Bowman against the will of rank and file firefighters.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Let me tell you how this story ends: OCEA, OCFA and most of SEIU (among others) will be abolished with contractual obligations vitiated on grounds of bad faith. The civil service will be reformed, heavily automated, and allowed to again unionize, but only under strict rules of play. The Plaintiff’s Bar will be reigned in by ending contingency fee arrangements and raising the burden of proof in civil cases to clear and convincing evidence. In this way, the people of California will know freedom and prosperity. That is just the way it’s going to be…

So Tony Rackauckas takes as his star witness a woman who’s trying to sue the county for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course they didn’t ask me for her payroll records
or her W-9 or her invoices for the money she earned from my campaign five years ago. So her allegation only surfaces now after she is manipulated by the DA’s office and has a strong motive. We asked yesterday for her to waive the attorney-client privilege so I can discuss her billings when she was my client, but we have yet to receive her waiver. I would be happy to discuss that if she gives me written permission as required by State Bar rules. They also didn’t disclose that Mike Johnson was on the payroll for Susan Schroeder running her human trafficking music extravaganza when she was running a private music company from inside the District Attorney’s office with her business partner/musician Foster that she failed to disclose because she was never forced to fill out a form 700 like every other executive in the county. Johnson ran the event that promoted Susan’s business and business partner using taxpayer funds. Those violations are indeed under investigation by the FPPC. They also didn’t tell you that George Cardenas accused me of using campaign monies to pay for my son’s college laptop computer. I have that receipt sitting on my desk showing I bought it at Staples with our personal credit card but of course no one asked me for that either. I didn’t see George retract that lie or explain how he came to believe this fabrication.

I didn’t even know about this investigation until I heard about it from the LA Times and clearly it was a Witch Hunt. Tony Rackauckas organized former disgruntled employees with an axe to grind and never even bothered to have me interviewed or ask me to be interviewed which I would have accepted it any moment as long as it was with an impartial investigator which never could happen because it was completely orchestrated by the District Attorney who I’m running against.

Today I’m sending a letter to the District Attorney insisting that he stop this nonsense by a violating his ethical duty to be impartial and objective and who has absolutely no business utilizing taxpayer paid for DA investigators to try to dig up dirt on me to privately or publicly convince me not to run against him. They dragged out this investigation, which started in October of 2016, in order to stop my candidacy which typically is announced after the summer, a year before the election next June.

This should be an exciting race but expect to watch more lies, more corruption allegations by a man who has lied his entire life. I have known Tony Rackauckas for more than twenty
years. I worked with his second wife, Kay, when she was his girlfriend in North Court when he was a Judge and she and I were Deputy District Attorneys. I know their story too. He’s lied to those closest to him including his family, his ex-wives, his employees, the media and the courts.

David Zenger

“This should be an exciting race…”

I believe the proper term would be entertaining.

verifiedsane

The finger pointing games being played between these two tarnished and ruling class political animals is absolutely hilarious…except when one considers that one of these self serving clowns could be occupying the DA’s office…truly head shaking!

Lyanna Lyns

Oh, give me a break, Todd. How about the other woman employee you have wronged, that you got your wife and Louise Armstrong to protect you so you wouldn’t have to testify? The one you sent deputies to her home to tell her to keep her mouth shut? The one you blocked her medical retirement? The one who found links between you, the BoS and organized crime figures using Caloptima like their personal ATM? The woman who knew the difference between a quote and a contract. The one who sent you six letters and emails telling you of horrific abuses of patients, and the ripping off of taxpayers for billions? You cowardly little #$@%. You make me sick. You are not man enough to be DA, or any other public office. You don’t face problems, you slither and slide and hide and threaten and obstruct. Before this is all done, you will be disbarred, and all because you were not man enough to simply listen to county employees trying to tell you there was a horrible problem. I can’t wait. Oh, and I don’t expect you to reply, here. You never take the personal responsibility to deal with anything like a professional, a leader or a man. You make me puke.

That darn proselytizer at Wahoo’s deserved to get handcuffed even though the responding OCSD cop cut him loose after telling him that he broke no law and was free to go. Apparently the cop believed that he was no imminent threat to society. She must have attended a different police training program than you did.

@Dan Chmielewski

Todd — your record of truthfulness isn’t exactly something to be proud of. Did you write this ditty on county time, campaign time or personal time? “But he’s worse” isn’t a high bar to jump, is it?

LFOldTimer

So a former client couldn’t pay her legal bills so Spitzer hired her so she could pay him back??? lol.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Could VOC dig a little deeper and give us the rest of that story?

Regardless of their education or worldly ways men always make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

‘“The opposing candidate, if he ever were indicted, would have a pretty good argument that the prosecutor’s office has an impermissible conflict of interest,” Green said.”

So, Mr. Green, does that theoretically mean that an opposing DA candidate could violate a myriad of state statutes and be shielded from prosecution by conflict of interest laws?

If so we might have the entire 17th Street gang along with the Crips and the Blood running for DA in 2018.

Lyanna Lyns

VoC will not dig deeper and give you the rest of the story. You want to know how many county employees from different agencies have come to VoC and they didn’t even want to see the evidence or talk to them. Puhleeze.

David Zenger

Hire a Playboy bunny as a policy advisor and expect a happy outcome?

This might turn out to be funnier than the Wahoo’s Bible Boy assault.

verifiedsane

Just precious, The kettle investigating the pot…..here we go….the two corruption twins are going to publicly assassinate each other…a grade school kid could run for DA and bury both of these self serving clowns…

LFOldTimer

Get out the popcorn.

We have our own local Hillary and Trump rolling in the mud.

Lyanna Lyns

Here is something you will love…Toddy encouraging employees at SSA to let foreign born clients know that LTC nursing home care is one of the few Caloptima/MediCal services that illegal aliens can take advantage of. So, bring Granny over from China, the Phillipines, Mexico, Iran and have your family doctor put her in a nice, expensive nursing home here, in the OC, instead of being stuck with her back home, and our over taxed taxpayers will support her to the tune of $6 to $60 grand a month, per patient, depending on the level of care, for as long as she lives. Nursing Home Tourism, it was called to the workers, a brainchild to up the amount of money being paid out in MediCal, so they could inflate their numbers to the Feds, and the nursing home operators were making large donations to the campaigns of the cooperative politicos. Illegal aliens, invited to take a lifetime free ride on YOU…how do you love that???? Thank Todd.